More of the Music of Led Zeppelin
Reviews and Commentaries for Led Zeppelin II
Here is the story of my first encounter with an amazing sounding copy of Zep II back in 1995 or thereabouts.
I had a friend who had come into possession of a White Label Demo pressing of the album and wanted to trade it in to me for the Mobile Fidelity pressing that I had played for him once or twice over the years, and which we both thought was The King on that album.
To my shock and dismay, his stupid American copy KILLED the MoFi. It TROUNCED it in every way. The bass was deeper and punchier. Everything was more dynamic. The vocals were more natural and correct sounding. The highs were sweeter and more extended. The whole pressing was just full of life in a way that the Mobile Fidelity wasn’t.
The Mobile Fidelity didn’t sound Bad. It sounded Not As Good. More importantly, in comparison with the good domestic copy, in many ways it now sounded wrong.
Let me tell you, it was a watershed moment in my growth as a record collector. I had long ago discovered that many MoFi’s weren’t all they were cracked up to be. But this was a MoFi I liked. And it had killed the other copies I’d heard in the past.
So I learned something very important that day. I learned that hearing a better pressing is the best way to understand what’s wrong with the pressing you think sounds right.
In this case, I used to like a very bad pressing, but I really did not know what was wrong with it because I had nothing better to compare it to. [1]
More evidence, if any were needed, that the three most important words in the world of audio are Compared to What?
Needless to say, the trade didn’t go through: he kept his copy and I was stuck with mine. But I knew what to look for. I knew what the numbers were in the dead wax. And I started hunting them down.
Our Review of the Mobile Fidelity Zep II